Saving Seafood

CALIFORNIA: Fishermen cautiously optimistic for strong salmon season

March 4, 2019 — After three difficult years when Chinook salmon population numbers were down and fishing opportunities were limited, commercial fishermen are hoping that the upcoming season will be better.

“What we’re seeing is a better forecast of salmon in the ocean this year than we saw last year,” said Harry Morse, public information officer for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, following a meeting with about 85 commercial and recreational anglers on Wednesday in Santa Rosa. “We’re cautiously optimistic.”

Commercial anglers who traditionally rely on salmon fishing for their livelihood have contended with three curtailed seasons in a row, a ripple effect of the drought that lasted from 2013 to 2016. Diners and restaurants have also experienced the aftereffects in terms of high prices and scarce supplies of salmon, turning what was once a spring and summer staple into a luxury item.

What’s different for the coming season, which is scheduled to start in May, is that there is a much larger estimated number of salmon in the ocean, meaning that catch limits will likely be somewhat looser when they are announced in April.

“It’s been a tough couple years for commercial fishermen,” said Jimmy Phillips, 37, of Half Moon Bay, who attended the meeting in Santa Rosa. A commercial fisherman for 19 years, he was struck by the fact that sports fishermen, who get a longer season and are allowed to keep smaller fish, were allowed to catch more fish than the commercial anglers. “We just want to see some fairness. We as a whole feel like it really has not been fair.”

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

Decline of salmon adds to the struggle of Puget Sound’s orcas

February 26, 2019 — The crew of the Bell M. Shimada hauled in the net, long as a football field and teeming with life. Scientists, off the coast of Washington for a week on this June research trip, crowded in for a look.

Each tow of the net revealed a changing world for chinook salmon, the Pacific Northwest’s most famous fish — and the most important prey for the southern-resident killer whales that frequent Puget Sound.

There were salmon the scientists expected, although fewer of them. But weirdly also pompano, tropical fish with pretty pink highlights, iridescent as a soap bubble, that were not supposed to be there at all.

What the scientists see each year on this survey underway since 1998 has taken on new importance as oceans warm in the era of climate change.

Decadelong cycles of more and less productive ocean conditions for salmon and other sea life are breaking down. The cycles of change are quicker. Novel conditions in the Pacific are the new normal.

“It used to be up, or down. Now, it is sideways,” said physiological ecologist Brian Beckman, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.

That’s bad news for endangered orcas that rely on salmon for food. When salmon decline, orcas suffer.

Read the full story from The Seattle Times at Anchorage Daily News

Few California sea lions from Willamette Falls euthanized, but program continues

February 15, 2019 — Only five California sea lions have been trapped at Willamette Falls and killed since the state received permission to launch the program to protect threatened winter steelhead and spring Chinook salmon.

The permit is for 93.

It was issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service after nonlethal methods, like relocating the mammals to the Oregon Coast, failed.

The sea lions simply swam back.

Euthanasia continues to be debated by advocacy groups and scientists alike, but the dire situation for the fish rarely is.

Last winter, a record-low 512 wild winter steelhead completed the journey past Willamette Falls, according to state counts. Less than 30 years ago, that number was more than 15,000.

Read the full story at the Salem Statesman Journal

Government employees return to work, but concerns linger

January 28, 2019 — Monday morning 800,000 federal employees will return to work for the first time in 35 days after the longest government shutdown in history.

It all stems from the ongoing political dispute over a border wall.

On Friday a deal was struck to temporarily open the government for three weeks. Federal workers are uneasy about the future after already missing two paychecks.

For more than a month Anna Kagley has been ready to return to her job at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She’s worked at the agency for three decades.

“I’m a little nervous after missing 30 plus days,” said Kagley.

The fishery biologist who lives in Everett works with Chinook salmon and is concerned the shutdown has harmed the agencies long term work.

“I’m concerned we’ll be missing the beginning of the pulse of the fish migrating for some of our monitoring projects,” said Kagley.

The mother of five and primary bread winner for her family says she still doesn’t know when she’s get her next paycheck.

Read the full story at KOMO News

WASHINGTON: 2.75 million salmon fry distributed to Gig Harbor hatchery after 6.2 million died in power outage

December 27, 2018 — Windstorms on Dec. 14 caused the power outage at the Gig Harbor state-run hatchery. A backup generator that would have powered a pump that supplies water to the incubators failed, and 6.2 million chinook salmon fry destined for release in Deschutes, Minter Creek and White River died.

Now, up to 2.75 million excess chinook fry — which accounts for less than half of the fry that were lost — will be transferred to the Minter Creek Hatchery to replace those salmon, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a Monday news release.

“This won’t fully replace the salmon lost last week, but it will allow us to put a significant number of fish into these waters next year,” WDFW Director Kelly Susewind said in the release. “I want to thank our tribal co-managers and federal partners for helping to make this happen.”

The replacement fry came from six other hatcheries. The move was approved by NOAA Fisheries on Friday, and the fish are set to be released in May and June of 2019.

Before the power outage on Dec. 14, 507,000 salmon were set to be released in White River, intended to provide food for Southern Resident orcas. The remaining 5.7 million salmon fry were part of ongoing operations to support state fisheries.

“Losing those fish was a painful setback for state and tribal fishers, for the communities that depend on fishing, and for Southern Resident orcas that feed on chinook,” Susewind said.

Read the full story at SeattlePI

WASHINGTON: 6.2 million salmon fry in incubators die during power outages

December 19, 2018 — Millions of salmon fry were killed during last week’s power outages.

The fry were in incubators at the Minter Creek Hatchery in Gig Harbor. The pump that supplies water to the incubators lost power, and the backup generator failed. As many as 6.2 million chinook salmon fry died, according to a news release from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).

“This is a devastating loss,” Eric Kinne, WDFW hatchery division manager, said in the release. “The department is conducting an analysis to determine the root cause of what went wrong so that we can improve procedures at Minter Creek and our other hatcheries to help ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

Read the full story at SeattlePI

JACK PAYNE: Endangered species science is itself endangered

December 19, 2018 — Catching chinook salmon today requires gear, technique, experience and luck. Catching salmon a year or a decade from now requires science.

That means local science. The recent National Climate Assessment notes that Alaska’s temperature has been warming at twice the global rate. To get at what this means for Alaskans, we need University of Alaska scientists.

Alaskans are getting a better handle on what a warming world does to salmon runs through the work of a federally funded corps of local fisheries researchers based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Known as the Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, its researchers address climate questions from an Alaska perspective.

For example, they research how melting glaciers can increase or diminish salmon numbers and for how many years. They consider how the increasing frequency of wildfires plays out on salmon streams. They compare how the same conditions can have different effects on sockeye, coho and chinook salmon.

It’s not the gloom and doom of a planet in peril. In some ways, climate change appears to have boosted some salmon counts, at least temporarily.

An accurate salmon count depends in part on a good scientist count. Here, the news is not good. Until I hired Alaska assistant unit leader Abby Powell to come run the University of Florida Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit three years ago, the Alaska unit had five faculty members. It’s down to two.

Slowly starving for lack of federal funding, Alaska’s fish and wildlife species science is itself becoming an endangered species.

The national Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit (CRU) program was established in 1935 on the premise that science, not politics, should guide management of national treasures such as eagles, bison, and moose. An administration proposal to de-fund it does away with that premise.

Read the full opinion piece at Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON: 6.2 million Chinook Salmon fry die after power outage at hatchery

December 18, 2018 — Last week’s windstorm cut the power to the Minter Creek Hatchery in Pierce County, in turn causing 6.2 million Chinook Salmon fry to die. The back up generator failed which caused the pumps that brought water into the tanks to fail.

The fish were kept in incubators at the hatchery. According to a press release from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the inventory of fish lost are 4.2 million Deshutes fall Chinook fry, 1.5 million Minter Creek fall Chinook fry and 507,000 White River spring Chinook fry.

“It’s a severe loss. It’s a challenge to try to recover from something like this. This particular species is not as age-class sensitive as other salmon species. But this is going to have a significant impact on adult returns,” said Jim Jenkins, WDFW South Puget Sound Hatchery Operations Manager.

Read the full story at KOMO

Less whale tours, dams: Washington task force returns with guidance on Tuesday

November 13, 2018 — Gov. Jay Inslee first assembled the group in March, inviting representatives from tribal, federal, local and other state governments, as well the private and non-profit sectors, to come together and develop longer-term action recommendations for orca recovery and future sustainability.

The task force’s main goals were to reduce the harm of the three main challenges facing orcas: pollution; lack of access to their primary prey, the chinook salmon; and boat traffic noise.

And though it’s only been about six months since Gov. Jay Inslee created a task force to draw up some guidelines about how to help the local Southern Resident orca population, it feels like a different world for the whales.

The pods had a rocky summer, starting with the latest census data showing that their population had dipped to a 30-year low, having lost 25 percent of the local orcas since the 1990s. Shortly after that, Tahlequah made headlines around the world when she swam with the body of dead calf for a week, covering 1,000 miles.

Later in the summer, the youngest member of the J-pod fell ill. Despite many researchers attempting to help get her back up to fighting weight, her disappearance and assumed death marked another disheartening chapter to the summer of the Southern Residents.

It’s especially discouraging considering that the outlook is a lot sunnier up north — the Northern Resident orca population has doubled since 1974, to a total of 309.

But the end of the summer brings a few bright spots: Multiple Southern Residents appear to be pregnant, and the task force’s guidelines are finally being filed.

“I look at 2018, and I hope this is the low point,” Barry Thom, regional administrator for NOAA fisheries West Coast Region, said a hearing regarding the orcas in Friday Harbor earlier this year. “The clock is running out on killer whale recovery, and it is heart wrenching to see.”

Draft recommendations released for public comment include significantly increasing investment in restoration and acquisition of habitat in areas where chinook salmon stocks most benefit Southern Resident orcas, immediately funding acquisition and restoration of nearshore habitat to increase the abundance of forage fish for salmon, and determine whether the removal of some dams would provide benefits to the Southern Resident orca population.

Read the full story at SeattlePI

Alaska’s Seafood Industry Faces the Blob

November 5, 2018 — Challenging statewide salmon harvests have dominated head­lines, with record-high sockeye production in Bristol Bay being the state’s primary saving grace. However, salmon are not the only fish in the sea keeping the state’s fisheries afloat, with many fishermen relying on groundfish, herring, and miscellaneous shellfish to make ends meet. Some fishermen use alternative fisheries as a way to balance their portfolios, while others focus entirely on a single target species ranging from Dungeness crab to sablefish. “In a typical year, Alaska’s most valuable fisheries [measured by value of harvest] include salmon, pollock, Pacific cod, crab, halibut, and black cod,” says Garrett Evridge, an economist with McDowell Group, an Alaska-based research firm.

In 2017, salmon was the most valuable fish group. Harvest of all five salmon species totaled more than $781 million in ex-vessel value, the amount paid to fishermen for their catch. However, Evridge notes that 2018 has been a disappointing year for many salmon fisheries, a statewide concern.

“Salmon across the state have come in weaker than forecast, particularly in the North Gulf of Alaska,” says Bert Lewis, the Central Region supervisor of the Division of Commercial Fisheries for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG). “In the region I work, we saw some of the lowest returns of sockeye salmon in recent history with the exception of Bristol Bay, where we had the biggest run on record.”

The sockeye salmon harvest is estimated to be 37 percent of the recent ten-year average, making it the smallest since 1975—all other smaller harvests date back to the 1800s.

The “blob”—a warm water anomaly that washed into the Gulf of Alaska in 2015—is thought to be the culprit. With most sockeye salmon spending three years in the ocean, those returning this year initially swam out into warmer waters, which researchers speculate disrupted the food webs that support the salmon, decreasing their survivorship and resulting in poor returns this year.

“That concept is supported by the record return we saw in Bristol Bay, with close to 65 million sockeye returning that, in 2015, came out into the Bering Sea, which did not have this warm-water anomaly,” Lewis says.

However, poor harvests weren’t limited to sockeye: Chinook, chum, and pink numbers all came in low.

“In the Southeast, total salmon harvest will be about 30 percent of the recent ten-year average, due primarily to poor pink salmon run, since pink salmon usually make up most of the harvest,” says Steve Heinl, a regional research biologist for ADFG in Southeast.

“Pink salmon harvest is 19 percent of the recent ten-year average and the smallest since 1976,” Heinl says. “Pink harvest will be less than half of the harvest in 2016 [18.4 million fish], which spurred a formal declaration of disaster.”

Levels are well below ADFG’s forecast of 23 million pink salmon, though only slightly below the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast of 10 million to 23 million.

As of late August, chum salmon harvest to date was 69 percent of the recent ten-year average; Chinook harvest was at 30 percent of recent ten-year average; and coho harvest was on track to be lowest in thirty years, says Heinl.

Though state numbers are low, harvest success varied dramatically among systems. In Southeast, there were excellent Sockeye runs at Chilkoot Lake and Redoubt Lake, which stood in stark contrast to poor runs in places such as Situk River, where the fishery was closed for most of the season.

Read the full story at Alaska Business